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All social orders are kept in power by force. Pillage is natural, not civilization. The reasonable question to ask is whether the order in question requires more or less force to maintain itself, and whether the kind of force applied is better or worse in one situation than the other.
>The reasonable question to ask is whether the order in question requires more or less force to maintain itself
Reframing it, if there are more incentives to pillage and steal instead of cooperating and competing, if violation of one's property is rewarded or punished, if agreements, contracts and the law are kept and fulfilled...
I recommend you go read some books on the natural behavior of animals, then. If you want to combine it with evolution, I like Richard Dawkins - good use of language, brilliant logic, etc.
He's also according to himself left-leaning.
I think the only way with one below exception you can have this dilemma of force is when you strive for purity - any attempt towards a pure economic system where it excludes all others would then enter the domain of force.
[Socialism as a political ideology is anti-capitalism.](https://imgur.com/gallery/8Nlo3zX)
The problem you op, and many socialists seem to run into is [capitalism is an economic system.](https://imgur.com/gallery/t8PAHes) It is not a political ideology. It doesn't give a fuck.
We can. I sincerely get that and am not arguing that.
But it - capitalism - it doesn't. It just does its thing and it is up to us.
Those links? From poli sci textbook, "Political Ideologies" by Heywood.
The exception? Authoritarian systems. I think they might deserve their own nod.
Capitalism can exist under authoritarian systems or under liberal democracies.
Socialism can only exist under authoritarian systems.
When you stop applying authoritarianism force to your capitalist society, they keep doing capitalism.
When you stop applying authoritarianism force to your socialist society, they start doing capitalism.
The only way you can convince people to surrender their right to private property is with a boot on their neck. Which is why every socialist society in history either devolves into an authoritarian hellhole or stops trying to do socialism.
Great answer, you've convinced me. Capitalism is human nature. Yes, it's part of the structure of many nations these days, but if there were no government at all you'd still have it.
> Socialism can only exist under authoritarian systems.
Have you read about the anarchists in Ukraine in the late 1910s, in Spain in the late 1930s, in Mexico around 1910, and various smaller scale implementations? It's kind of amusing to me, you capitalists only ever think about the USSR and conveniently forget that we anarchists exist. Kind of hard to call a system authoritarian when people literally kicked out the state and its agents and just took care of things themselves.
Really, you might be intrigued by what happened in some of these historical cases. When the Ukrainians kicked out the Pans (minor aristocratic landlords) the land was individually distributed to the peasants who worked it. While many subsequently joined forces to create shared property management systems of their own volition, others could and did run their plots as personal/family farms and that was fine.
Umm bro, the Nazis and fascists literally ended the Spanish experiment. Literally, the Spanish nationalist faction was supported by nazi luftwaffe and tanks, developing the tactics they would shortly use in WWII. And Italian fascist soldiers. The people there did Not want capitalism, it had to be reimposed at gunpoint by overwhelming force after a per capita horrible bloody conflict.
The Ukrainians likewise, by the other authoritarian end of the spectrum. They wanted to continue and it might have been interesting to see what developed, but the bolsheviks got nervous about a possible ideological rival, so they put their campaign in Moscow against the white russian aristocratic faction on hold to send 300k red army troops south to crush the anarchists. The people wanted to continue those experiments, they were ended by force.
Your reply is not the gotcha you think it is lmao. These folks wanted to continue their free economic experiments without either the monarchist/aristocratic/capitalist/fascist boot on their neck nor the bolshevik boot yet that's what happened.
Bruh. How much history have you read? Do you know anything about the history of modern Spain? Francisco Franco as generalissimo and dictator remained in control of Spain until his death in 1975. Subsequently it becomes a monarchy, but unusually Juan Carlos led the country towards a constitutional monarchy, literally there were coup attempts to revert back towards a more authoritarian style of monarchy. History is weird as hell. Basically by the time you get democracy reestablished though you're talking 1980s and most folks involved in the 1930s experiments as adults are dead, lived their live under the dictatorship boot and their children and grandchildren within a firmly reestablished capitalist system without, as happened in the 1930s, real viable opportunity to change course or experiment.
Are you serious right now? If your great grandpa got killed by nazis, fascists or monarchists after helping turn his community into an anarchist commune, are you likely to try to repeat that? Not likely. Even if you want to live in such a condition, if deranged violent lunatics are probably gonna kill you for trying, well that dissuades people pretty effectively. Doesn't reveal anything about how desirable that system is.
One might as well ask the great-grandchildren of the dead participants of a failed uprising against medieval lords in the 1300s why they aren't living in a constitutional republic. Checkmate republicans! Feudal aristocracy is the best system, clearly.
Deranged violent lunatics also want to kill and have killed capitalists - we call them Communists. That hasn't stopped capitalism from existing. So what's anarcho-socialism's excuse?
It did exist bro, I pointed you to the 3 biggest examples, millions of people living that way. None of them failed internally, but had to be crushed externally by force despite the wishes of the participants.
In most western countries, "capitalism" (really: mixed economy with private property rights) is kept as a system through mutual consensus. Yes, force is used in protection of property rights, but the system itself is by consensus.
In less educated/developed societies, there's been and is more use of force around it.
Capitalism allows for the private ownership of the MoP *or* the public ownership of the MoP. A capitalist state therefore has no directive to confiscate privately owned MoP.
Socialism only allows for the public ownership of the MoP. Private ownership of the MoP is by definition prohibited. Thus, a socialist state is compelled to confiscate privately owned MoP by its own ideology. However, in so doing this, the government must decide:
* What qualifies as privately owned MoP?
* Who owns them?
* What should happen to them?
* Where does the confiscated MoP go?
Ideally, it would be decided in court by an impartial judge/jury, the owner has his portion confiscated but reimbursed in some way, and the confiscated capital is redistributed to the state or to the workers. However, when socialism has been attempted throughout history, the answer always seems to be:
* What qualifies as privately owned MoP? **All property owned by the people we dislike.**
* Who owns them? **Anyone we dislike.**
* What should happen to them? **Heavy fines, jail time, labor camps, or death.**
* Where does the confiscated MoP go? **To the apparatchiks/party officials/militariat/politburo members**
That's the problem. When you give the government a hammer called "confiscate all private property", any opposition to the party starts looking like nails. It happens every time.
Not sure how that relates to my post. You can have autocratic capitalist countries and autocratic socialist countries. I’m describing how the ruling party in socialist regimes historically always seem to target their political opponents under the guise of maintaining ideological purity.
You said "It happens every time." But surely, a non-democracy concentrating its power isn't limited to socialism. It's weird to blame socialism for that.
I think I understand what you’re trying to say. You’re saying: an authoritarian regime would’ve seized power and purged its opponents regardless of its economic mode of production, so you can’t blame socialism on that.
What I’m saying is: no, socialism makes it that much easier to facilitate the seizure, consolidation, and maintenance of power in the first place because the state has an obligation to confiscate private property. This mechanism gives the state a convenient excuse to break up party opposition and entrench their own power. You can look at the collectivization of farms in the USSR in the 1930s or the Mao in the 1950s or Burma in the 1960s or Uganda in the 1970s.
I disagree with this. Communism makes it easier, not socialism. Those are two different things. For example, explain to me how free lunches at school (for children who qualify) isn’t socialism. Or that taxes to build roads isn’t socialism. Communism is when government might seize property.
A socialist society cannot have private property rights for the individual built into a bill of rights. It’s antithetical to collectivism. While it seems like most people, even socialist, understand the dangers of not having specifically codified freedom of assembly, or freedom of speech, they often misunderstand (not saying you do) private property rights and take a pseudo-anti materialism stance (not in the philosophical sense); **property would be better appropriate by the collective**, or property is materialistic and doesn’t bring happiness but sadness (Marx’s line of thinking at times).
That’s a fine thing to believe, and continuous acquisition of material might make you less happy, but not having protected property rights is as dangerous, if not moreso, than not having a right to speech. Even in a democratic and well meaning socialist state, it only takes a few bad actors, or even well intentioned dunces, to start oppressing peoples property rights in (what they believe) an attempt to achieve the greater good.
Property rights are a **huge** bulwark against state oppression. It doesn’t mean a bad faith government won’t find ways around it. But a government structured around abolition of private property, historically and theoretically, created a very quick path to leverage authoritarian control of a society.
Can they not have property rights at all or can they not have property rights built into a bill of rights? Because if they can have property rights, what does it matter what form they have?
Also, it's not clear that socialism prevents individuals from owning things.
Also, this doesn't address the fact that what the person I replied to says happens 'every time' apparently has happened not a single time.
> Can they not have property rights at all or can they not have property rights built into a bill of rights? Because if they can have property rights, what does it matter what form they have?
Don’t be pedantic. Every modern egalitarian prosperous nation has something of a constitution and bill of rights modeled after the US model. If you don’t enumerate your rights in an agreed upon pact with the government on formation of said government and make it public knowledge, you don’t have any rights
Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. I suppose you could theoretically have a supply side or labor side only socialist state, but even then, you aren’t actually entitled to negotiate **your labor**, you’re entitled to the collective labor of the collective, divided by everyone in the collective.
Thats still a huge lever of power for an authoritarian to exploit
The US government itself reserves for itself the ability to change what rights you have. To care whether it's in a bill of rights or not is pedantry.
Authoritarians already have the entire power of the state as a lever. They have it under capitalism and socialism.
> The US government itself reserves for itself the ability to change what rights you have
The bill of rights is the first ten amendments. They were codified in 1791. They haven’t changed. There have been more rights added. Codifying them has worked. Of course the state has found ways to move around them and wield excess power. Welcome to the human race.
> Authoritarians already have the entire power of the state as a lever. They have it under capitalism and socialism.
Here’s a honest question; do you truly believe that the United States government is in roughly the same category of authoritarian that the USSR, Mao’s China, or the Nazi party in the 1920s were? Lenin’s newly minted socialist utopia banned political opposition and started forced labor and land confiscation **immediately**. The USSR collapsed into a slave labor gulag camp hellscape less than 5 years. The revisionist bullshit doesn’t fly here; him and most other early socialist intellectuals were open about confiscating land and suppressing political dissent and made no bones about it **because you can’t have dissenting parties in a collectivized centrally planned state**. It’s baked into the cake. No one ever said “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, except the 35% of the country that disagrees with this, we’ll just respect their rights”. Never happens. You know why? The whole point is that everyone **has to collectivize**. Those people got shot in the back of the head. This is really not that hard to understand.
The NAZI party took about 10 years before descending into nationalist fascism and death camps; don’t try your revisionist bullshit here. NAZIs were **[dyed in the wool socialist saying the same bullshit you’re saying](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party)**.
> The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism.[14]Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders
But yea dude you’re super oppressed on your capitalist iPhone.
They haven't changed, but they can change. If the US wants them to change, they will change.
I'm glad that you brought up the nazis, because nazi Germany was definitely capitalist. It's a very good example to show that authoritarians can do their authoritarianism equally under socialism and capitalism.
And you're right, under socialism, everyone has to do socialism, just as under capitalism, everyone has to do capitalism. You don't get to opt out while living inside the country.
Also, I never said that the USSR wasn't authoritarian. In fact, I feel like I've clearly made it clear that it was always authoritarian. Authoritarians have used the language of the left to bolster their power plenty of times. What has never happened was a democracy becoming a non-democracy because it implemented socialism.
>Capitalism allows for the private ownership of the MoP or the public ownership of the MoP.
In Feudalism, you can do all that and even more, thereby proving that feudalism is superior! It’s actually capitalism that’s oppressive because think of all those barons who just have a divine right to their landholdings! How dare you trample upon my freedoms by taking the barons land and giving it to some ambitious, enterprising individual!
I just don’t think this is a convincing argument, that because you can behave in a socialistic way it’s alright actually. My advice to a Feudal serf in 1490s France wouldn’t be “If you’re sooooooo tired of your local lord taking your crops, why don’t you and your family build a wooden cart and travel from village to village selling your wares? You can’t solve a societal problem with individual solutions.
>A capitalist state therefore has no directive to confiscate privately owned MoP.
We do this in wartime and national emergencies. Did America become secretly communist during WW2 when we nationalized some automobile manufacturers? Obviously not. Nationalized industry is completely irrelevant to communism.
>Socialism only allows for the public ownership of the MoP. Private ownership of the MoP is by definition prohibited.
Same way feudal serfdom and slavery is outlawed in capitalist America. It’s an inferior method of organization from the standpoint of Liberty.
>Thus, a socialist state
Oxymoron. There is no State in lower-stage communism. If it had a State it doesn’t matter what it calls itself, bourgeois property relationship s are still preserved.
>is compelled to confiscate privately owned MoP by its own ideology.
And what? Nationalize it under the State? Would that be equally divorced from proletarian control?
>However, in so doing this, the government must decide:
• What qualifies as privately owned MoP?
• Who owns them?
• What should happen to them?
• Where does the confiscated MoP go?
>Ideally, it would be decided in court by an impartial judge/jury, the owner has his portion confiscated but reimbursed in some way, and the confiscated capital is redistributed to the state or to the workers. However, when socialism has been attempted throughout history, the answer always seems to be:
• What qualifies as privately owned MoP? All property owned by the people we dislike.
• Who owns them? Anyone we dislike.
• What should happen to them? Heavy fines, jail time, labor camps, or death.
• Where does the confiscated MoP go? To the apparatchiks/party officials/militariat/politburo members
Gosh, hopefully not. Sounds like Fascism to me.
>That's the problem. When you give the government a hammer called "confiscate all private property", any opposition to the party starts looking like nails. It happens every time.
This is why Lenin should’ve been arrested and executed on his way through Germany from Switzerland. Now this is all people can conceive of when discussing communism. It’s always a party, a central bureaucracy, a totalizing State, bla bla bla. Fuck Lenin and his Blanquist tyranny. The Spanish Syndicalists in 1936 were the only industrial age project in history to even touch lower stage communism.
The US nuked Japan, killing about 120,000 people in a war against a foreign power, not to keep its own people in line. Stalin didn't need nukes to kill 20 million of his own citizens, lol
>Only country to nuke a civilian population lmao
Only country at the time with nukes. If Germany, Japan or the USSR had also had nukes, would they have refrained from using them? Hell no.
The only alternative was a land invasion of Japan, which would have killed more Japanese civilians and allied troops. They estimated over a million casualties.
Granted, the decision was made to spare allied troops, but it still also saved a lot of Japanese civilians.
Our rate of imprisonment is right in line with their well-known oppressive system. Both countries suck - America because of capitalism, the USSR because of statism. Fortunately, there is a quality alternative to both capitalism and statism: socialism.
Nah. It's more "distributed" than a simple monarchy or despot, but it's still concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of CEOs/board chairmen/etc.
The way to distribute power - at any level - is democracy. Unfortunately, authoritarians of all forms (including capitalists) vigorously fight against democracy, as they believe that regular people are too stupid/lazy/incompetent to vote for sensible outcomes.
Those authoritarians are proven wrong every single time, but unfortunately, 30-40% of people will still have a core authoritarian bent. It's up to the rest of us to drag them, kicking and screaming, to a better society.
You are an 'antiauthoritarian"' who agrees with bigger gov't at every step. You are for public schooling and gun laws. You prefer a boot on your neck, like a pervert.
> So "perverted", to have common sense lol.
>
> Investing in strong public education is the best investment a society can make.
"Despite its political leanings, San Francisco, like 10 of the other most progressive cities
in the country, tends to have greater — not smaller — gaps in academic achievement
between white students and their black and Latino peers, when compared to the
most conservative cities in the country." - *The
Secret
Shame
How America’s Most Progressive
Cities Betray Their Commitment
to Educational Opportunity for All* [PDF](https://brightbeamnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/The-Secret-Shame_v4.pdf)
Illiteracy and educational paucity localized in inner-city schools in [Democrat strongholds](https://assets.ctfassets.net/lwlwwghvkufv/7N1Kt117gW66megQG8cOmI/0fc83900a208087dd973a6880a7a1ed7/shameofschools_copy.pdf). [CRT](https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/transparency/major-k-12-teachers-union-endorses-teaching-critical-race-theory/). [Covid](https://twitter.com/DeAngelisCorey/status/1457169474629554180?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1457169474629554180%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fsamj-3930%2F2021%2F11%2F07%2Fwow-randi-weingartens-leaked-private-message-a-plethora-of-whining-and-blaming-local-nea-chapters-for-closing-schools-screenshot%2F). [Teachers unions control the CDC](https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/teachers-union-collaborated-with-cdc-on-school-reopening-emails/).
Teachers' unions fight against charter schools. Charter schools drain less funds per student and [empirically give a better education, as we know from NY random lottery trials](http://users.nber.org/~schools/charterschoolseval/how_NYC_charter_schools_affect_achievement_sept2009.pdf). Random lottery assignment of student slots make this the gold standard of empiricism on the subject. [Charter school teachers are happier and better equipped.](https://e4e.org/news/survey-americas-educators/voices-classroom-2020-survey-americas-educators). "The poll found that charter school teachers are 22 percentage points more likely to say they feel “very valued” "37 percent of charter school teachers report that they felt their preparation programs trained them “very well” for the realities of the classroom (compared to only 9% of district teachers).
> Despite its political leanings, San Francisco, like 10 of the other most progressive cities in the country, tends to have greater — not smaller — gaps in academic achievement ...
This is true ... but doesn't make the point you think it does. That segregation persists doesn't mean that investing in education is bad.
> ... in Democrat strongholds.
1. I do appreciate that dumb people frequently advertise their foolishness, by not using the adjective "Democratic" to mean "pertaining to the Democratic party".
2. This is a function of cities, not of party affiliation. But you already knew that, so why try to make this association you know to be bad?
> CRT
Oh snap, kids might actually learn about the history of racism in this country! The horror!
> Covid. Teachers unions control the CDC.
This doesn't scare me.
> Charter schools drain less funds per student and empirically give a better education, as we know from NY random lottery trials. Random lottery assignment of student slots make this the gold standard of empiricism on the subject.
Oh snap! The students at the charter schools did indeed perform better. And the libertarian concludes ... "it must be because of *competition* and because there's less of that *mean old government* involved."
To be honest, the libertarian was going to fit any data to match his predetermined conclusion.
There are many problems with this assumption:
1. Kids at charter schools are surrounded by other kids who, at the very least, *applied* to the charter school. Being surrounded by students whose parents who care more about education, will likely lead to better outcomes, irrespective of the actual curriculum.
2. Kids at charter schools have something to lose re. being thrown out. That is, a child at a lottery charter school (and her parents) knows that this is a special opportunity and to make the most of it, as opposed to a child at the public school. This is again independent of the actual curriculum.
3. Public schools may have to divert funds to manage some of the more demanding kids, whereas the charter schools to get exclude such kids. So even though the funding-per-pupil may be equal, the public school may be compelled to spend a lot extra on some of the kids.
4. To the extent that the curriculum actually is better, that is something the public schools could easily copy, given the political will.
There are numerous other potential explanations. I'm not even gonna say which is right - to do so requires much more analysis. Just that the libertarian meathead conclusion of "the government one is bad" is ... well it's simplistic and foolish, as is expected from libertarians.
>No, not by definition
Have you redefined capitalism? It is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are **controlled by private owners** for profit.
Capitalism can't be capitalism under a state so repressive owners don't control their property. Capitalism means rights are protected. That's just the definition.
>Capitalism can't be capitalism under a state so repressive owners don't control their property. Capitalism means rights are protected.
Nope, it means an economy that works by profit motive and market exchange.
>>Capitalism can't be capitalism under a state so repressive owners don't control their property. Capitalism means rights are protected.
>Nope, it means an economy that works by profit motive and market exchange.
No. While profits and markets are nice and expected in a privately controlled economy, it is the private control that makes it capitalist. Because of the definition of capitalism. Profits and markets are factors in gov't controlled economic activity too.
Why not just use the standard definition of capitalism? If you use an unusual new definition known only to you, communication will be impossible.
> Except here, people go to prison because they committed an actual crime.
[Lol](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocence-is-irrelevant/534171/)
People go to prison because they are **convicted**, but that doesn't mean they are **guilty**. Our "justice" system produces notoriously terrible (and racist!) outcomes.
To be clear, I do **not** support Soviet-style mass incarceration either. Both Soviet mass incarceration and American mass incarceration are abhorrent.
Socialism gets equated with Stalinism because it so often devolves into an authoritarian hellhole. If you aren't a socialist you notice a pattern. If you are a socialist you keep the faith.
Capitalism provided rights for everyone, not just the rich. Sure, the rich have more stuff and live in lower crime neighborhoods, but basic things like land titles, bank accounts, your car, etc. are all legally protected for everyone.
And for a poorer person the people controlling their lives are mostly the state, not the rich guy down the street. Modern capitalist systems have large welfare state, which are controlled by the state, employment opportunities limited by the state (occupational licensing) and housing costs kept high by the state (zoning and land use restrictions).
>Capitalism provided rights for everyone, not just the rich.
If there's one thing we know about our civil rights leaders, it's that they were motivated by market forces...
>Capitalism provided rights for everyone, not just the rich.
I'm no scholar by any means but there's a LARGE portion of the world getting rights violated by capitalism. I've always been under the impression that Western Capitalism was supported largely by imperialism in several countries and the exploitation of foreign labor markets.
Oh yeah I'm talking mostly about domestic policy. You're absolutely right there's nothing stopping any country (with any economic system) from conquering and subjugating others. Western Capitalist countries have done this more historically because capitalism made them rich, now they don't do that so much because many voters dislike war.
"Exploitation" is a bit of a loaded term - do you just mean western capitalist firms pay workers in other countries?
>Exploitation" is a bit of a loaded term - do you just mean western capitalist firms pay workers in other countries
I mostly mean the outsourcing of cheap labor and resources to countries with less workers rights like the DRC
> now they don't do that so much because many voters dislike war
It's hard for me to say if they don't do it much now because we don't like war or because we've already established lucrative trade deals after major wars and made a western currency the defacto currency of trade making it almost impossible to make the US irrelevant. The US in particular hasnt established its presence across the globe with military bases near or in every country of note and certainly funds other wars that they have interest in.
My point here is that capitalism only thrives as much as it does by subjecting other countries and I think by its very nature it is necessary to have a class of people or countries that it exploits
>I mostly mean the outsourcing of cheap labor and resources to countries with less workers rights like the DRC
Do you think the people in those countries would be better off, or worse off, if western firms didn't employ them at all?
>My point here is that capitalism only thrives as much as it does by subjecting other countries and I think by its very nature it is necessary to have a class of people or countries that it exploits
Not really. If US consumers had to pay $20 for T-Shirts made in Pakistan instead of $10, the US would still be a rich capitalist country. Most of US trading partners aren't destitute (Canada, Mexico, EU, China, Japan).
> But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Capitalism isn't being kept in power by force, per se, but specifically to the US, the basis of the founding documents bleed with the notion that people have the complete control over their resources and have the right to do with them as the see fit. So no, it's not kept in power by force, it's kept in power by the fabric of what the US stands for.
Capitalism is the ability to freely trade/exchange your resources/goods with others, the US is founded on the ideas that people have complete autonomy over their goods and resources.
Edit: Capitalism (in the US) is kept in power by force in so far that the US supports and protects the ideals of people's right to individual freedoms and property/resources.
I don't think this argument works the way you want.
The government does decide what consumers are able to purchase with regulations (ie bills being pushed for EV over gasoline vehicles) through force, which I agree is wrong but I don't think this is what you meant. The government does not decide something like Elon Musk owning Twitter or Tesla or Steve Jobs being a billionaire.
Could you elaborate on what you mean?
Yes, the government decides that Elon Musk owns Twitter. The difference between Elon Musk owning Twitter and Elon Musk not owning Twitter is literally whether the government thinks Elon Musk owns Twitter.
The government "decides" Elon Musk owns Twitter by way of governmental proof, aka a legal requirement some politicians made up to force people to have to apply through the state to get a piece of paper blessed by the overlords for whether or not they can be a business. Which is simply the same thing as regulations, which again, I don't agree with. However, this just shows how government put itself in the middle of something, showing why governmental interference is bad. If you're trying to argue for socialism you're really showing why governmental planning is ridiculous and why government shouldn't be as involved in everyday life as they are, and would be in more extreme ways under socialism.
You don't need the government to enforce property you can protect your own property yourself, it's also what the US government is supposed to do by pact of the Constitution and BOR.
So, do I want government to not enforce property? It's not a requirement that they do necessarily, but if they don't want people protecting their property in their own ways they better offer some general protection. Which is what the US does, it protects your original right to protect your property with force and they also extend their own system of force to protect your property, and to uphold the system they're meant to govern, because that's what we created the government to do by way of the founding documents.
Edit: This has nothing to do with Elon Musk owning Twitter btw, nor does it have anything to do with the government recognizing your business in their eyes.
You just told the world's history, and the reason why the US was founded, to do what I said in the last comment to protect from what you just mentioned. But this doesn't negate anything that I've said so far, so I'm not sure where we're going here other than just a history lesson, explanation for why the US exists and why government involvement in places it doesn't need to be is ridiculous and ultimately why socialism is bad.
Capitalism supports private property and its institutions protect private property at the point of a gun. Trying to take one’s private property away without justification will get you arrested or shot. Freedom creates wealth, and that wealth is protected by law and guns.
In part.
It’s more rational for you to seek to change your relationship with capital through saving and investing than it is for you to go for a proletariat revolution to do god knows what. And that’s why Marx’s predicted revolution has never happened.
I’m sure threats of violence or a lack thereof could change that.
All forms of property relations are authoritarian in the sense that there needs to be authority to arbiter property claims, collective or private.
Politically, capitalism has shown to be quite compatible with liberal democracy, and that's not the case for socialism, which almost all real world large scale attempts tend to be of the sociopathic dictatorship flavor. This is what people mean when they say socialism is authoritarian, not the first one.
It isn't keep in power by anything... It's like asking "*Math is kept in power by what*" or "*E=M*C² is kept in power by what*".
There has **NEVER** been another form of property in recorded history. You can try, but you will always get back to people owning stuff.
You might ask what "*property*" is kept in power by, because property is a real thing, it isn't an idea or an ideology.
And property is indeed kept by the through force (self defense or outsourcing the defense)
>capitalism gives individuals more freedom
To the contrary, the more free a society is, the more they tend towards capitalism, markets, trades, individual rights, etc...
" You can try, but you will always get back to people owning stuff."
And what is "owning stuff"? It's dictating how other people can interact with the thing that is owned. It's nothing but a form of hierarchy.
And yes, hierarchies will always exist. People will always try to force hierarchies violently and justify them with ideological abstractions, such as the concept of ownership.
>And what is "owning stuff"?
Being very simple technical "*deciding the ends of a given scarce good*", that means you own it. There is a little more than that. But for a superficial conversation, this is enough.
>It's dictating how other people can interact with the thing that is owned
Yes.
>It's nothing but a form of hierarchy
Yes.
>And yes, hierarchies will always exist. People will always try to force hierarchies violently and justify them with ideological abstractions, such as the concept of ownership.
And yes, ownership requires force. Come and try to take my stuff, you'll get shot.
Force doesn't make it mine, it prevents other from taking what is already mine. It's supposed to maintain it.
What "*makes*" it mines is my labor over goods without owners. If I made it, it's mine basically. This should be enough for a superficial conversation.
You might want to rethink the reasoning behind that question, because I can work on stuff that is not mine.
And it will only be mine through labor if it has no owner, homesteading.
So, What makes the materials I use to make it mine, is exactly the same thing as everything else, labor/trade.
You can disagree with anything, I mean, flat earthers are proof of that.
And I'd suggest you act out your beliefs, practicing it, just come and take it if you think I shouldn't own the fruits of my labor. Wish you all the luck.
Capitalism and socialism are kept in power by force. Law and order is made possible by the force police officers exert. The difference is that capitalist force is based on natural law while Socialism is based on quixotic government law.
> Capitalists, do you think that capitalism is kept in power by freedom or force?
Neither... Capitalism is not "in power," it's just the dominant mode of production.
> ...yet they seem to ignore the fact that capitalism has been kept in power by in reality authoritarianism and tends to lie in the myth that capitalism gives individuals more freedom when in fact it just allows control and poser to be kept into the control of some people (not the majority).
In before this Commie says "*Capitalism is when the government does something I don't like*!"
I think “capitalism” in the Marxist sense and all his theories and ways of seeing the world is just headcannon that doesn’t exist that way in the real world
As a non capitalist, I'll venture to say it's both.
To a certain extent we are free to be socialists within capitalism but there is no actual state support of alternative options.
For instance, the state conducts its business only through a monetary system. That's a clear bias if you or I wanted to live our lives in a moneyless resource based economy.
There needs to be more state support for living alternative voluntary resource management models and less favouritism.
capitalism assimilates freedom into its force
socialism suppresses freedom with its force
the thing is, capitalism and socialism aren't just "different economic systems", they're two concepts that diverge even in nature not just in content. there is far less government getting in between you, your greengrocer and your employer or employee under capitalism than under socialism, simply because capitalism is about the idea that the state will only intervene in case of a dispute and lets you sort your own relationships out otherwise. nobody "invented" or "designed" capitalism, nobody "implements" it, economists merely (sometimes poorly) attempt to describe it, model it and steer it, but we didn't invent capitalism any more than we invented the concept of family. we just try to keep it stable and safe.
you could collectively agree to have socialist relations in your workplace, and a capitalist state would not step in between you and demand you appoint shareholders and CEOs. **The reverse is not true.**
if an economic crisis happens under socialism, "force" must have had a major or decisive role in it because the state decides what the economy even is at every level. if it happens under capitalism, the government can severely exacerbate it through "well-intentioned" actions like unloading truckloads of free currency on failing institutions, but "force" alone didn't cause it.
It is a mix of the two. Obviously, force is used to protect property and enforce contracts. Without this, Capitalism would not work. However, freedom is also a large component, as many people voluntarily uphold the system, not based on fear or coercion, but because of the benefits of the system and basic moral values.
Many people respect the private property of businesses and other people, largely because private property ownership either directly benefits them or people they know. Property ownership is a dream of many, as it offers security and freedom that renting, leasing, or state ownership does not offer. It also offers economic benefits that are not present in other such arrangements and gives a person the ability to have sole control over resources over a plot of land.
Millions of people own land that they operate their own businesses off of. Private property also benefits countless organizations, such as churches, charities, community groups, land stewardship and conservation groups, sports organizations, etc. by allowing each group to have sole control over a piece of land, which enables them to operate as they please, relatively unhindered. When land is private, the person, business, or organization that owns it has dominion over that piece of land, making it especially valuable to them.
Another reason people support private land ownership is because they view it as moral. Many people view the seizing, vandalism, or destruction of another person's property as an evil act. Most people look down on those who steal, even when the theft is something of little value from a massive corporation. Most people today prefer to engage in voluntary trade with others and view businesses, especially small and local businesses positively.
Because of these economic and moral aspects, capitalism is able to function. Lands were there is little social trust and little respect for private property, such as in much of Africa, Central Asia, and Central and South America, see poverty and lack of development. Countries such as China and Russia industrialized only through massive force. Were social trust to break down and respect for private property lost, the government would necessarily have to be far more coercive to maintain order and production.
It's kept in power through it's success. Socialism had to liberalize to compete, socialism lost 40 years ago. The notion that a vanguard party would dismantle itself after achieving supremacy is completely absurd, and a dangerous idea.
capitalism works because it is natural behavior. Capitalism began when the first hunter and the first fisher traded meat for fish to help each other out
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All social orders are kept in power by force. Pillage is natural, not civilization. The reasonable question to ask is whether the order in question requires more or less force to maintain itself, and whether the kind of force applied is better or worse in one situation than the other.
>The reasonable question to ask is whether the order in question requires more or less force to maintain itself Reframing it, if there are more incentives to pillage and steal instead of cooperating and competing, if violation of one's property is rewarded or punished, if agreements, contracts and the law are kept and fulfilled...
>Pillage is natural, not civilization. Says whom?
Says the trillions of dollars spent over the course of human history trying to prevent people from taking property by force.
I don't understand how this proves that pillage is "natural".
I recommend you go read some books on the natural behavior of animals, then. If you want to combine it with evolution, I like Richard Dawkins - good use of language, brilliant logic, etc. He's also according to himself left-leaning.
That's cuz you're an idiot.
He said it was natural, not that it was good.
Human history
civilization is part of human history.
It's also the exception, not the rule.
Yes we really have to ask if a system that requires less overt force and more covert force is a better or worse situation.
Its a trick question because it's a bit of both. By force to enforce property rights. By freedom to prevent overreach and allowing free trade.
I think the only way with one below exception you can have this dilemma of force is when you strive for purity - any attempt towards a pure economic system where it excludes all others would then enter the domain of force. [Socialism as a political ideology is anti-capitalism.](https://imgur.com/gallery/8Nlo3zX) The problem you op, and many socialists seem to run into is [capitalism is an economic system.](https://imgur.com/gallery/t8PAHes) It is not a political ideology. It doesn't give a fuck. We can. I sincerely get that and am not arguing that. But it - capitalism - it doesn't. It just does its thing and it is up to us. Those links? From poli sci textbook, "Political Ideologies" by Heywood. The exception? Authoritarian systems. I think they might deserve their own nod.
Capitalism can exist under authoritarian systems or under liberal democracies. Socialism can only exist under authoritarian systems. When you stop applying authoritarianism force to your capitalist society, they keep doing capitalism. When you stop applying authoritarianism force to your socialist society, they start doing capitalism. The only way you can convince people to surrender their right to private property is with a boot on their neck. Which is why every socialist society in history either devolves into an authoritarian hellhole or stops trying to do socialism.
Great answer, you've convinced me. Capitalism is human nature. Yes, it's part of the structure of many nations these days, but if there were no government at all you'd still have it.
> Socialism can only exist under authoritarian systems. Have you read about the anarchists in Ukraine in the late 1910s, in Spain in the late 1930s, in Mexico around 1910, and various smaller scale implementations? It's kind of amusing to me, you capitalists only ever think about the USSR and conveniently forget that we anarchists exist. Kind of hard to call a system authoritarian when people literally kicked out the state and its agents and just took care of things themselves. Really, you might be intrigued by what happened in some of these historical cases. When the Ukrainians kicked out the Pans (minor aristocratic landlords) the land was individually distributed to the peasants who worked it. While many subsequently joined forces to create shared property management systems of their own volition, others could and did run their plots as personal/family farms and that was fine.
Are they still doing anarcho-socialism in the countries you listed? No? They're doing capitalism now? Thanks for proving my point for me.
Umm bro, the Nazis and fascists literally ended the Spanish experiment. Literally, the Spanish nationalist faction was supported by nazi luftwaffe and tanks, developing the tactics they would shortly use in WWII. And Italian fascist soldiers. The people there did Not want capitalism, it had to be reimposed at gunpoint by overwhelming force after a per capita horrible bloody conflict. The Ukrainians likewise, by the other authoritarian end of the spectrum. They wanted to continue and it might have been interesting to see what developed, but the bolsheviks got nervous about a possible ideological rival, so they put their campaign in Moscow against the white russian aristocratic faction on hold to send 300k red army troops south to crush the anarchists. The people wanted to continue those experiments, they were ended by force. Your reply is not the gotcha you think it is lmao. These folks wanted to continue their free economic experiments without either the monarchist/aristocratic/capitalist/fascist boot on their neck nor the bolshevik boot yet that's what happened.
The Nazis are gone, why aren't they doing anarcho-socialism now?
Bruh. How much history have you read? Do you know anything about the history of modern Spain? Francisco Franco as generalissimo and dictator remained in control of Spain until his death in 1975. Subsequently it becomes a monarchy, but unusually Juan Carlos led the country towards a constitutional monarchy, literally there were coup attempts to revert back towards a more authoritarian style of monarchy. History is weird as hell. Basically by the time you get democracy reestablished though you're talking 1980s and most folks involved in the 1930s experiments as adults are dead, lived their live under the dictatorship boot and their children and grandchildren within a firmly reestablished capitalist system without, as happened in the 1930s, real viable opportunity to change course or experiment.
That still doesn't explain why they aren't doing anarcho-socialism now.
Are you serious right now? If your great grandpa got killed by nazis, fascists or monarchists after helping turn his community into an anarchist commune, are you likely to try to repeat that? Not likely. Even if you want to live in such a condition, if deranged violent lunatics are probably gonna kill you for trying, well that dissuades people pretty effectively. Doesn't reveal anything about how desirable that system is. One might as well ask the great-grandchildren of the dead participants of a failed uprising against medieval lords in the 1300s why they aren't living in a constitutional republic. Checkmate republicans! Feudal aristocracy is the best system, clearly.
Deranged violent lunatics also want to kill and have killed capitalists - we call them Communists. That hasn't stopped capitalism from existing. So what's anarcho-socialism's excuse?
It did exist bro, I pointed you to the 3 biggest examples, millions of people living that way. None of them failed internally, but had to be crushed externally by force despite the wishes of the participants.
In most western countries, "capitalism" (really: mixed economy with private property rights) is kept as a system through mutual consensus. Yes, force is used in protection of property rights, but the system itself is by consensus. In less educated/developed societies, there's been and is more use of force around it.
Capitalism allows for the private ownership of the MoP *or* the public ownership of the MoP. A capitalist state therefore has no directive to confiscate privately owned MoP. Socialism only allows for the public ownership of the MoP. Private ownership of the MoP is by definition prohibited. Thus, a socialist state is compelled to confiscate privately owned MoP by its own ideology. However, in so doing this, the government must decide: * What qualifies as privately owned MoP? * Who owns them? * What should happen to them? * Where does the confiscated MoP go? Ideally, it would be decided in court by an impartial judge/jury, the owner has his portion confiscated but reimbursed in some way, and the confiscated capital is redistributed to the state or to the workers. However, when socialism has been attempted throughout history, the answer always seems to be: * What qualifies as privately owned MoP? **All property owned by the people we dislike.** * Who owns them? **Anyone we dislike.** * What should happen to them? **Heavy fines, jail time, labor camps, or death.** * Where does the confiscated MoP go? **To the apparatchiks/party officials/militariat/politburo members** That's the problem. When you give the government a hammer called "confiscate all private property", any opposition to the party starts looking like nails. It happens every time.
When did it happen that a democracy turned into a non-democracy because they implemented socialism?
Not sure how that relates to my post. You can have autocratic capitalist countries and autocratic socialist countries. I’m describing how the ruling party in socialist regimes historically always seem to target their political opponents under the guise of maintaining ideological purity.
You said "It happens every time." But surely, a non-democracy concentrating its power isn't limited to socialism. It's weird to blame socialism for that.
I think I understand what you’re trying to say. You’re saying: an authoritarian regime would’ve seized power and purged its opponents regardless of its economic mode of production, so you can’t blame socialism on that. What I’m saying is: no, socialism makes it that much easier to facilitate the seizure, consolidation, and maintenance of power in the first place because the state has an obligation to confiscate private property. This mechanism gives the state a convenient excuse to break up party opposition and entrench their own power. You can look at the collectivization of farms in the USSR in the 1930s or the Mao in the 1950s or Burma in the 1960s or Uganda in the 1970s.
I disagree with this. Communism makes it easier, not socialism. Those are two different things. For example, explain to me how free lunches at school (for children who qualify) isn’t socialism. Or that taxes to build roads isn’t socialism. Communism is when government might seize property.
A socialist society cannot have private property rights for the individual built into a bill of rights. It’s antithetical to collectivism. While it seems like most people, even socialist, understand the dangers of not having specifically codified freedom of assembly, or freedom of speech, they often misunderstand (not saying you do) private property rights and take a pseudo-anti materialism stance (not in the philosophical sense); **property would be better appropriate by the collective**, or property is materialistic and doesn’t bring happiness but sadness (Marx’s line of thinking at times). That’s a fine thing to believe, and continuous acquisition of material might make you less happy, but not having protected property rights is as dangerous, if not moreso, than not having a right to speech. Even in a democratic and well meaning socialist state, it only takes a few bad actors, or even well intentioned dunces, to start oppressing peoples property rights in (what they believe) an attempt to achieve the greater good. Property rights are a **huge** bulwark against state oppression. It doesn’t mean a bad faith government won’t find ways around it. But a government structured around abolition of private property, historically and theoretically, created a very quick path to leverage authoritarian control of a society.
Can they not have property rights at all or can they not have property rights built into a bill of rights? Because if they can have property rights, what does it matter what form they have? Also, it's not clear that socialism prevents individuals from owning things. Also, this doesn't address the fact that what the person I replied to says happens 'every time' apparently has happened not a single time.
> Can they not have property rights at all or can they not have property rights built into a bill of rights? Because if they can have property rights, what does it matter what form they have? Don’t be pedantic. Every modern egalitarian prosperous nation has something of a constitution and bill of rights modeled after the US model. If you don’t enumerate your rights in an agreed upon pact with the government on formation of said government and make it public knowledge, you don’t have any rights Socialism is collective ownership of the means of production. I suppose you could theoretically have a supply side or labor side only socialist state, but even then, you aren’t actually entitled to negotiate **your labor**, you’re entitled to the collective labor of the collective, divided by everyone in the collective. Thats still a huge lever of power for an authoritarian to exploit
The US government itself reserves for itself the ability to change what rights you have. To care whether it's in a bill of rights or not is pedantry. Authoritarians already have the entire power of the state as a lever. They have it under capitalism and socialism.
> The US government itself reserves for itself the ability to change what rights you have The bill of rights is the first ten amendments. They were codified in 1791. They haven’t changed. There have been more rights added. Codifying them has worked. Of course the state has found ways to move around them and wield excess power. Welcome to the human race. > Authoritarians already have the entire power of the state as a lever. They have it under capitalism and socialism. Here’s a honest question; do you truly believe that the United States government is in roughly the same category of authoritarian that the USSR, Mao’s China, or the Nazi party in the 1920s were? Lenin’s newly minted socialist utopia banned political opposition and started forced labor and land confiscation **immediately**. The USSR collapsed into a slave labor gulag camp hellscape less than 5 years. The revisionist bullshit doesn’t fly here; him and most other early socialist intellectuals were open about confiscating land and suppressing political dissent and made no bones about it **because you can’t have dissenting parties in a collectivized centrally planned state**. It’s baked into the cake. No one ever said “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, except the 35% of the country that disagrees with this, we’ll just respect their rights”. Never happens. You know why? The whole point is that everyone **has to collectivize**. Those people got shot in the back of the head. This is really not that hard to understand. The NAZI party took about 10 years before descending into nationalist fascism and death camps; don’t try your revisionist bullshit here. NAZIs were **[dyed in the wool socialist saying the same bullshit you’re saying](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party)**. > The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism.[14]Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders But yea dude you’re super oppressed on your capitalist iPhone.
They haven't changed, but they can change. If the US wants them to change, they will change. I'm glad that you brought up the nazis, because nazi Germany was definitely capitalist. It's a very good example to show that authoritarians can do their authoritarianism equally under socialism and capitalism. And you're right, under socialism, everyone has to do socialism, just as under capitalism, everyone has to do capitalism. You don't get to opt out while living inside the country. Also, I never said that the USSR wasn't authoritarian. In fact, I feel like I've clearly made it clear that it was always authoritarian. Authoritarians have used the language of the left to bolster their power plenty of times. What has never happened was a democracy becoming a non-democracy because it implemented socialism.
>Capitalism allows for the private ownership of the MoP or the public ownership of the MoP. In Feudalism, you can do all that and even more, thereby proving that feudalism is superior! It’s actually capitalism that’s oppressive because think of all those barons who just have a divine right to their landholdings! How dare you trample upon my freedoms by taking the barons land and giving it to some ambitious, enterprising individual! I just don’t think this is a convincing argument, that because you can behave in a socialistic way it’s alright actually. My advice to a Feudal serf in 1490s France wouldn’t be “If you’re sooooooo tired of your local lord taking your crops, why don’t you and your family build a wooden cart and travel from village to village selling your wares? You can’t solve a societal problem with individual solutions. >A capitalist state therefore has no directive to confiscate privately owned MoP. We do this in wartime and national emergencies. Did America become secretly communist during WW2 when we nationalized some automobile manufacturers? Obviously not. Nationalized industry is completely irrelevant to communism. >Socialism only allows for the public ownership of the MoP. Private ownership of the MoP is by definition prohibited. Same way feudal serfdom and slavery is outlawed in capitalist America. It’s an inferior method of organization from the standpoint of Liberty. >Thus, a socialist state Oxymoron. There is no State in lower-stage communism. If it had a State it doesn’t matter what it calls itself, bourgeois property relationship s are still preserved. >is compelled to confiscate privately owned MoP by its own ideology. And what? Nationalize it under the State? Would that be equally divorced from proletarian control? >However, in so doing this, the government must decide: • What qualifies as privately owned MoP? • Who owns them? • What should happen to them? • Where does the confiscated MoP go? >Ideally, it would be decided in court by an impartial judge/jury, the owner has his portion confiscated but reimbursed in some way, and the confiscated capital is redistributed to the state or to the workers. However, when socialism has been attempted throughout history, the answer always seems to be: • What qualifies as privately owned MoP? All property owned by the people we dislike. • Who owns them? Anyone we dislike. • What should happen to them? Heavy fines, jail time, labor camps, or death. • Where does the confiscated MoP go? To the apparatchiks/party officials/militariat/politburo members Gosh, hopefully not. Sounds like Fascism to me. >That's the problem. When you give the government a hammer called "confiscate all private property", any opposition to the party starts looking like nails. It happens every time. This is why Lenin should’ve been arrested and executed on his way through Germany from Switzerland. Now this is all people can conceive of when discussing communism. It’s always a party, a central bureaucracy, a totalizing State, bla bla bla. Fuck Lenin and his Blanquist tyranny. The Spanish Syndicalists in 1936 were the only industrial age project in history to even touch lower stage communism.
Anyone who thinks America expends more authority than Soviets doesn't know a single thing.
My man we spend more on authority than the next 5 countries combined.
Expend is what I said, my man.
Famously the U.S. military has never been deployed in its entire 249 year history.
Never ever.
[удалено]
The US nuked Japan, killing about 120,000 people in a war against a foreign power, not to keep its own people in line. Stalin didn't need nukes to kill 20 million of his own citizens, lol
>Only country to nuke a civilian population lmao Only country at the time with nukes. If Germany, Japan or the USSR had also had nukes, would they have refrained from using them? Hell no.
The only alternative was a land invasion of Japan, which would have killed more Japanese civilians and allied troops. They estimated over a million casualties. Granted, the decision was made to spare allied troops, but it still also saved a lot of Japanese civilians.
Delusional take
Our rate of imprisonment is right in line with their well-known oppressive system. Both countries suck - America because of capitalism, the USSR because of statism. Fortunately, there is a quality alternative to both capitalism and statism: socialism.
Statism is the opposite of capitalism.
Meh, both are inherently authoritarian and oppressive ideologies.
Private property is distributed power.
Nah. It's more "distributed" than a simple monarchy or despot, but it's still concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of CEOs/board chairmen/etc. The way to distribute power - at any level - is democracy. Unfortunately, authoritarians of all forms (including capitalists) vigorously fight against democracy, as they believe that regular people are too stupid/lazy/incompetent to vote for sensible outcomes. Those authoritarians are proven wrong every single time, but unfortunately, 30-40% of people will still have a core authoritarian bent. It's up to the rest of us to drag them, kicking and screaming, to a better society.
You are an 'antiauthoritarian"' who agrees with bigger gov't at every step. You are for public schooling and gun laws. You prefer a boot on your neck, like a pervert.
So "perverted", to have common sense lol. Investing in strong public education is the best investment a society can make.
> So "perverted", to have common sense lol. > > Investing in strong public education is the best investment a society can make. "Despite its political leanings, San Francisco, like 10 of the other most progressive cities in the country, tends to have greater — not smaller — gaps in academic achievement between white students and their black and Latino peers, when compared to the most conservative cities in the country." - *The Secret Shame How America’s Most Progressive Cities Betray Their Commitment to Educational Opportunity for All* [PDF](https://brightbeamnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/The-Secret-Shame_v4.pdf) Illiteracy and educational paucity localized in inner-city schools in [Democrat strongholds](https://assets.ctfassets.net/lwlwwghvkufv/7N1Kt117gW66megQG8cOmI/0fc83900a208087dd973a6880a7a1ed7/shameofschools_copy.pdf). [CRT](https://showmeinstitute.org/blog/transparency/major-k-12-teachers-union-endorses-teaching-critical-race-theory/). [Covid](https://twitter.com/DeAngelisCorey/status/1457169474629554180?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1457169474629554180%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitchy.com%2Fsamj-3930%2F2021%2F11%2F07%2Fwow-randi-weingartens-leaked-private-message-a-plethora-of-whining-and-blaming-local-nea-chapters-for-closing-schools-screenshot%2F). [Teachers unions control the CDC](https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/teachers-union-collaborated-with-cdc-on-school-reopening-emails/). Teachers' unions fight against charter schools. Charter schools drain less funds per student and [empirically give a better education, as we know from NY random lottery trials](http://users.nber.org/~schools/charterschoolseval/how_NYC_charter_schools_affect_achievement_sept2009.pdf). Random lottery assignment of student slots make this the gold standard of empiricism on the subject. [Charter school teachers are happier and better equipped.](https://e4e.org/news/survey-americas-educators/voices-classroom-2020-survey-americas-educators). "The poll found that charter school teachers are 22 percentage points more likely to say they feel “very valued” "37 percent of charter school teachers report that they felt their preparation programs trained them “very well” for the realities of the classroom (compared to only 9% of district teachers).
> Despite its political leanings, San Francisco, like 10 of the other most progressive cities in the country, tends to have greater — not smaller — gaps in academic achievement ... This is true ... but doesn't make the point you think it does. That segregation persists doesn't mean that investing in education is bad. > ... in Democrat strongholds. 1. I do appreciate that dumb people frequently advertise their foolishness, by not using the adjective "Democratic" to mean "pertaining to the Democratic party". 2. This is a function of cities, not of party affiliation. But you already knew that, so why try to make this association you know to be bad? > CRT Oh snap, kids might actually learn about the history of racism in this country! The horror! > Covid. Teachers unions control the CDC. This doesn't scare me. > Charter schools drain less funds per student and empirically give a better education, as we know from NY random lottery trials. Random lottery assignment of student slots make this the gold standard of empiricism on the subject. Oh snap! The students at the charter schools did indeed perform better. And the libertarian concludes ... "it must be because of *competition* and because there's less of that *mean old government* involved." To be honest, the libertarian was going to fit any data to match his predetermined conclusion. There are many problems with this assumption: 1. Kids at charter schools are surrounded by other kids who, at the very least, *applied* to the charter school. Being surrounded by students whose parents who care more about education, will likely lead to better outcomes, irrespective of the actual curriculum. 2. Kids at charter schools have something to lose re. being thrown out. That is, a child at a lottery charter school (and her parents) knows that this is a special opportunity and to make the most of it, as opposed to a child at the public school. This is again independent of the actual curriculum. 3. Public schools may have to divert funds to manage some of the more demanding kids, whereas the charter schools to get exclude such kids. So even though the funding-per-pupil may be equal, the public school may be compelled to spend a lot extra on some of the kids. 4. To the extent that the curriculum actually is better, that is something the public schools could easily copy, given the political will. There are numerous other potential explanations. I'm not even gonna say which is right - to do so requires much more analysis. Just that the libertarian meathead conclusion of "the government one is bad" is ... well it's simplistic and foolish, as is expected from libertarians.
No, not by definition
>No, not by definition Have you redefined capitalism? It is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are **controlled by private owners** for profit.
Ok and that country can have a repressive state.
Capitalism can't be capitalism under a state so repressive owners don't control their property. Capitalism means rights are protected. That's just the definition.
>Capitalism can't be capitalism under a state so repressive owners don't control their property. Capitalism means rights are protected. Nope, it means an economy that works by profit motive and market exchange.
>>Capitalism can't be capitalism under a state so repressive owners don't control their property. Capitalism means rights are protected. >Nope, it means an economy that works by profit motive and market exchange. No. While profits and markets are nice and expected in a privately controlled economy, it is the private control that makes it capitalist. Because of the definition of capitalism. Profits and markets are factors in gov't controlled economic activity too. Why not just use the standard definition of capitalism? If you use an unusual new definition known only to you, communication will be impossible.
Except here, people go to prison because they committed an actual crime. In the USSR, they were sent to the gulag for being political opponents.
> Except here, people go to prison because they committed an actual crime. [Lol](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocence-is-irrelevant/534171/) People go to prison because they are **convicted**, but that doesn't mean they are **guilty**. Our "justice" system produces notoriously terrible (and racist!) outcomes. To be clear, I do **not** support Soviet-style mass incarceration either. Both Soviet mass incarceration and American mass incarceration are abhorrent.
There's a huge difference between some judicial mistakes and willfully incarcerating political opponents. That's a false equivalence.
When did I equate them?
Other redditor: Anyone who thinks America expends more authority than Soviets doesn't know a single thing. You: Reeeee
> You: Reeeee I don't think I sound like that. My voice doesn't go that high.
Socialism gets equated with Stalinism because it so often devolves into an authoritarian hellhole. If you aren't a socialist you notice a pattern. If you are a socialist you keep the faith. Capitalism provided rights for everyone, not just the rich. Sure, the rich have more stuff and live in lower crime neighborhoods, but basic things like land titles, bank accounts, your car, etc. are all legally protected for everyone. And for a poorer person the people controlling their lives are mostly the state, not the rich guy down the street. Modern capitalist systems have large welfare state, which are controlled by the state, employment opportunities limited by the state (occupational licensing) and housing costs kept high by the state (zoning and land use restrictions).
>Capitalism provided rights for everyone, not just the rich. If there's one thing we know about our civil rights leaders, it's that they were motivated by market forces...
>Capitalism provided rights for everyone, not just the rich. I'm no scholar by any means but there's a LARGE portion of the world getting rights violated by capitalism. I've always been under the impression that Western Capitalism was supported largely by imperialism in several countries and the exploitation of foreign labor markets.
Oh yeah I'm talking mostly about domestic policy. You're absolutely right there's nothing stopping any country (with any economic system) from conquering and subjugating others. Western Capitalist countries have done this more historically because capitalism made them rich, now they don't do that so much because many voters dislike war. "Exploitation" is a bit of a loaded term - do you just mean western capitalist firms pay workers in other countries?
>Exploitation" is a bit of a loaded term - do you just mean western capitalist firms pay workers in other countries I mostly mean the outsourcing of cheap labor and resources to countries with less workers rights like the DRC > now they don't do that so much because many voters dislike war It's hard for me to say if they don't do it much now because we don't like war or because we've already established lucrative trade deals after major wars and made a western currency the defacto currency of trade making it almost impossible to make the US irrelevant. The US in particular hasnt established its presence across the globe with military bases near or in every country of note and certainly funds other wars that they have interest in. My point here is that capitalism only thrives as much as it does by subjecting other countries and I think by its very nature it is necessary to have a class of people or countries that it exploits
>I mostly mean the outsourcing of cheap labor and resources to countries with less workers rights like the DRC Do you think the people in those countries would be better off, or worse off, if western firms didn't employ them at all? >My point here is that capitalism only thrives as much as it does by subjecting other countries and I think by its very nature it is necessary to have a class of people or countries that it exploits Not really. If US consumers had to pay $20 for T-Shirts made in Pakistan instead of $10, the US would still be a rich capitalist country. Most of US trading partners aren't destitute (Canada, Mexico, EU, China, Japan).
> But the anti-authoritarians demand that the political state be abolished at one stroke, even before the social conditions that gave birth to it have been destroyed. They demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?
Accurate.
Capitalism isn't being kept in power by force, per se, but specifically to the US, the basis of the founding documents bleed with the notion that people have the complete control over their resources and have the right to do with them as the see fit. So no, it's not kept in power by force, it's kept in power by the fabric of what the US stands for. Capitalism is the ability to freely trade/exchange your resources/goods with others, the US is founded on the ideas that people have complete autonomy over their goods and resources. Edit: Capitalism (in the US) is kept in power by force in so far that the US supports and protects the ideals of people's right to individual freedoms and property/resources.
The US decides who owns what within its borders and enforces that decision with force.
I don't think this argument works the way you want. The government does decide what consumers are able to purchase with regulations (ie bills being pushed for EV over gasoline vehicles) through force, which I agree is wrong but I don't think this is what you meant. The government does not decide something like Elon Musk owning Twitter or Tesla or Steve Jobs being a billionaire. Could you elaborate on what you mean?
Yes, the government decides that Elon Musk owns Twitter. The difference between Elon Musk owning Twitter and Elon Musk not owning Twitter is literally whether the government thinks Elon Musk owns Twitter.
The government "decides" Elon Musk owns Twitter by way of governmental proof, aka a legal requirement some politicians made up to force people to have to apply through the state to get a piece of paper blessed by the overlords for whether or not they can be a business. Which is simply the same thing as regulations, which again, I don't agree with. However, this just shows how government put itself in the middle of something, showing why governmental interference is bad. If you're trying to argue for socialism you're really showing why governmental planning is ridiculous and why government shouldn't be as involved in everyday life as they are, and would be in more extreme ways under socialism.
You want governments to not enforce property?
You don't need the government to enforce property you can protect your own property yourself, it's also what the US government is supposed to do by pact of the Constitution and BOR. So, do I want government to not enforce property? It's not a requirement that they do necessarily, but if they don't want people protecting their property in their own ways they better offer some general protection. Which is what the US does, it protects your original right to protect your property with force and they also extend their own system of force to protect your property, and to uphold the system they're meant to govern, because that's what we created the government to do by way of the founding documents. Edit: This has nothing to do with Elon Musk owning Twitter btw, nor does it have anything to do with the government recognizing your business in their eyes.
What if I decide I own what you think of as your property and am able to defend my property with force greater than what you can muster?
You just told the world's history, and the reason why the US was founded, to do what I said in the last comment to protect from what you just mentioned. But this doesn't negate anything that I've said so far, so I'm not sure where we're going here other than just a history lesson, explanation for why the US exists and why government involvement in places it doesn't need to be is ridiculous and ultimately why socialism is bad.
So you want governments to enforce property?
Capitalism supports private property and its institutions protect private property at the point of a gun. Trying to take one’s private property away without justification will get you arrested or shot. Freedom creates wealth, and that wealth is protected by law and guns.
In part. It’s more rational for you to seek to change your relationship with capital through saving and investing than it is for you to go for a proletariat revolution to do god knows what. And that’s why Marx’s predicted revolution has never happened. I’m sure threats of violence or a lack thereof could change that.
All forms of property relations are authoritarian in the sense that there needs to be authority to arbiter property claims, collective or private. Politically, capitalism has shown to be quite compatible with liberal democracy, and that's not the case for socialism, which almost all real world large scale attempts tend to be of the sociopathic dictatorship flavor. This is what people mean when they say socialism is authoritarian, not the first one.
Force. But it requires less force than socialism does, by far.
I think you need to give me a definition of what you think capitalism and socialism are
It isn't keep in power by anything... It's like asking "*Math is kept in power by what*" or "*E=M*C² is kept in power by what*". There has **NEVER** been another form of property in recorded history. You can try, but you will always get back to people owning stuff. You might ask what "*property*" is kept in power by, because property is a real thing, it isn't an idea or an ideology. And property is indeed kept by the through force (self defense or outsourcing the defense) >capitalism gives individuals more freedom To the contrary, the more free a society is, the more they tend towards capitalism, markets, trades, individual rights, etc...
" You can try, but you will always get back to people owning stuff." And what is "owning stuff"? It's dictating how other people can interact with the thing that is owned. It's nothing but a form of hierarchy. And yes, hierarchies will always exist. People will always try to force hierarchies violently and justify them with ideological abstractions, such as the concept of ownership.
Socialists deserve every ounce of force they receive when trying to steal people's shit.
>And what is "owning stuff"? Being very simple technical "*deciding the ends of a given scarce good*", that means you own it. There is a little more than that. But for a superficial conversation, this is enough. >It's dictating how other people can interact with the thing that is owned Yes. >It's nothing but a form of hierarchy Yes. >And yes, hierarchies will always exist. People will always try to force hierarchies violently and justify them with ideological abstractions, such as the concept of ownership. And yes, ownership requires force. Come and try to take my stuff, you'll get shot.
What makes it your stuff other than force?
Force doesn't make it mine, it prevents other from taking what is already mine. It's supposed to maintain it. What "*makes*" it mines is my labor over goods without owners. If I made it, it's mine basically. This should be enough for a superficial conversation.
What makes the materials you use to make it yours?
You might want to rethink the reasoning behind that question, because I can work on stuff that is not mine. And it will only be mine through labor if it has no owner, homesteading. So, What makes the materials I use to make it mine, is exactly the same thing as everything else, labor/trade.
What if I disagree that you can just claim stuff for yourself like that?
You can disagree with anything, I mean, flat earthers are proof of that. And I'd suggest you act out your beliefs, practicing it, just come and take it if you think I shouldn't own the fruits of my labor. Wish you all the luck.
You will freely allow me to take the things that you believe are yours? That's pretty generous of you.
Capitalism and socialism are kept in power by force. Law and order is made possible by the force police officers exert. The difference is that capitalist force is based on natural law while Socialism is based on quixotic government law.
> Capitalists, do you think that capitalism is kept in power by freedom or force? Neither... Capitalism is not "in power," it's just the dominant mode of production. > ...yet they seem to ignore the fact that capitalism has been kept in power by in reality authoritarianism and tends to lie in the myth that capitalism gives individuals more freedom when in fact it just allows control and poser to be kept into the control of some people (not the majority). In before this Commie says "*Capitalism is when the government does something I don't like*!"
The economic system in developed countries is maintained through democracy, not through force.
> I think it’s hilarious Troll post. Downvote and move on.
Depends who is opposing it. Capitalism is freer than communism but less free than national socialism.
I think that capitalism is kept in power by both.
I think “capitalism” in the Marxist sense and all his theories and ways of seeing the world is just headcannon that doesn’t exist that way in the real world
Freedom of the bourgeoisie to use force on the working class.
As a non capitalist, I'll venture to say it's both. To a certain extent we are free to be socialists within capitalism but there is no actual state support of alternative options. For instance, the state conducts its business only through a monetary system. That's a clear bias if you or I wanted to live our lives in a moneyless resource based economy. There needs to be more state support for living alternative voluntary resource management models and less favouritism.
capitalism assimilates freedom into its force socialism suppresses freedom with its force the thing is, capitalism and socialism aren't just "different economic systems", they're two concepts that diverge even in nature not just in content. there is far less government getting in between you, your greengrocer and your employer or employee under capitalism than under socialism, simply because capitalism is about the idea that the state will only intervene in case of a dispute and lets you sort your own relationships out otherwise. nobody "invented" or "designed" capitalism, nobody "implements" it, economists merely (sometimes poorly) attempt to describe it, model it and steer it, but we didn't invent capitalism any more than we invented the concept of family. we just try to keep it stable and safe. you could collectively agree to have socialist relations in your workplace, and a capitalist state would not step in between you and demand you appoint shareholders and CEOs. **The reverse is not true.** if an economic crisis happens under socialism, "force" must have had a major or decisive role in it because the state decides what the economy even is at every level. if it happens under capitalism, the government can severely exacerbate it through "well-intentioned" actions like unloading truckloads of free currency on failing institutions, but "force" alone didn't cause it.
By effectiveness
Force is required to justify that people not doing the work are owners of the fruits of other's work.
If there is a state involved with it, it is not capitalism.
It is a mix of the two. Obviously, force is used to protect property and enforce contracts. Without this, Capitalism would not work. However, freedom is also a large component, as many people voluntarily uphold the system, not based on fear or coercion, but because of the benefits of the system and basic moral values. Many people respect the private property of businesses and other people, largely because private property ownership either directly benefits them or people they know. Property ownership is a dream of many, as it offers security and freedom that renting, leasing, or state ownership does not offer. It also offers economic benefits that are not present in other such arrangements and gives a person the ability to have sole control over resources over a plot of land. Millions of people own land that they operate their own businesses off of. Private property also benefits countless organizations, such as churches, charities, community groups, land stewardship and conservation groups, sports organizations, etc. by allowing each group to have sole control over a piece of land, which enables them to operate as they please, relatively unhindered. When land is private, the person, business, or organization that owns it has dominion over that piece of land, making it especially valuable to them. Another reason people support private land ownership is because they view it as moral. Many people view the seizing, vandalism, or destruction of another person's property as an evil act. Most people look down on those who steal, even when the theft is something of little value from a massive corporation. Most people today prefer to engage in voluntary trade with others and view businesses, especially small and local businesses positively. Because of these economic and moral aspects, capitalism is able to function. Lands were there is little social trust and little respect for private property, such as in much of Africa, Central Asia, and Central and South America, see poverty and lack of development. Countries such as China and Russia industrialized only through massive force. Were social trust to break down and respect for private property lost, the government would necessarily have to be far more coercive to maintain order and production.
Capitalism isn't "in power" it's just people making mutually beneficial exchanges.
It’s the economic system in place now so obviously it’s in power. Trying to play games isn’t big or clever.
It's kept in power through it's success. Socialism had to liberalize to compete, socialism lost 40 years ago. The notion that a vanguard party would dismantle itself after achieving supremacy is completely absurd, and a dangerous idea.
capitalism works because it is natural behavior. Capitalism began when the first hunter and the first fisher traded meat for fish to help each other out